"All the world's a stage" is the phrase that begins a monologue from William Shakespeare's As You Like It, spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Act II Scene VII. The speech compares the world to a stage and life to a play, and catalogues the seven stages of a man's life, sometimes referred to as the seven ages of man: infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon, and second childhood, sans. It is one of Shakespeare's most frequently-quoted passages, and is mistakenly believed by some to be Shakespeare's last speech.
Read more about All The World's A Stage: The Ages, Origins, All The World's A Stage Monologue, Summary, In Limerick
Famous quotes containing the words all the, world and/or stage:
“This was the noblest Roman of them all.
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar.
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“All in all, I’d say,
the world is strangling.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“I have come to believe ... that the stage may do more than teach, that much of our current moral instruction will not endure the test of being cast into a lifelike mold, and when presented in dramatic form will reveal itself as platitudinous and effete. That which may have sounded like righteous teaching when it was remote and wordy will be challenged afresh when it is obliged to simulate life itself.”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)